#48 | Air Purifiers and the Science of Healthy Indoor Air with Alex Kessler

Jess Kismet (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Building Psychology Potty where we talk about better buildings to live and breathe in. My name is Jess Kismet and I am your host. Thank you for joining me today. Before we get started on this interview, I wanna encourage you to please follow on your preferred platform and leave a review if you're liking the content so far. So today we are talking about air purifiers and my guest is Alex Kessler, the founder of the Healthy Home Guide.

Although we are focusing on air purifiers today, Alex has an absolute wealth of knowledge around how the home affects the health of its occupants. He took his own lived experience with mould illness, combined it with a highly detail orientated scientific brain, and now he works with people dealing with everything from allergies to complex chronic conditions like CIRS pots, chronic fatigue, and so much more. I strongly encourage you to dig a little bit deeper into Alex's work on his website and YouTube channel.

after you listen to this episode. Welcome Alex.

Alex Kessler (00:56)
Hi, I'm Alex Kessler. Yes, that view, introduction was beautiful.

Jess Kismet (01:07)
Hahaha

Alex Kessler (01:08)
I just wanted to say it's my absolute honor to be on the poddie And I'm a fan, yeah.

Jess Kismet (01:13)
Woohoo!

Alex Kessler (01:15)
And I'm a fan of you Jess. And you know what? Whenever I hear podcasts, because I'm a huge podcast listener, I'm always like.

Why doesn't the guest say how much they like the host and like the podcast? I would love to hear that myself. So I'm going to say it myself. I'm a fan of Jess and I really like the insightful questions that you ask. And I like your like calming positive vibe. And I saw the questions that you asked me because she sends the questions to us before we get interviewed. And I was like, wow, these are like, I'm excited to answer these.

So yeah, thank you.

Jess Kismet (01:56)
So cool, thank you. Well, it's an absolute pleasure to have you. did obviously some due diligence before as I was writing the questions and went into your YouTube channel and your website. yeah, like you've got a lot to offer. So I'm excited to have this chat.

Alex Kessler (02:18)
Awesome.

Jess Kismet (02:19)
So you've been severely ill with toxic mould exposure and you are still recovering. It's a pretty confronting place to start but I think it's an important starting point for everything that you do now. So could you tell us a bit about that experience, your career to date and how you created the Healthy Home Guide?

Alex Kessler (02:41)
Yeah, so many years ago, I developed a severe case of chronic inflammatory response syndrome or CIRS because an environmental consultant told me that I could remediate what appeared to be a minor mould problem myself. And so when I opened up the wall, there was just a little spot of mould. And when I opened up the wall, I discovered that much of my house was covered in mould and bacteria from

What we found was a long-term sewage leak. So I had no idea,

Jess Kismet (03:13)
wow.

Alex Kessler (03:14)
yeah. So I had no idea of the

Jess Kismet (03:15)
Yummy.

Alex Kessler (03:16)
risks. I did not know about mould at this time. So I removed all the mouldy material and patched the leak and myself and almost immediately I got dozens of debilitating symptoms. then I got a bunch of different.

HVAC, you know companies in and I was told that the only way to dramatically improve my air quality was to open up my walls and retrofit a ducted HVAC system with like a fresh air intake and a whole home HEPA filtration and a dehumidification system into my home for over $75,000 which needless to say Couldn't afford

Yeah, it's funny, like in many regions of the world, we don't have ducts which people that have ducks think that's crazy. They're like, wait, what? All homes in my area have ducts Yeah. When this happened to me, I lived in Massachusetts and most homes do not have ducts So I was like, all right.

Jess Kismet (04:19)
Actually it's funny you say that. It's funny you say that because

I've just recently been up in Queensland and far north Queensland where I've got really tropical heat and they don't, someone said to me they don't tend to have ducts up there either. They have like wall split systems for their air conditioners. They don't have

Alex Kessler (04:33)
Yep.

Jess Kismet (04:34)
ducts and I was like everywhere in South Australia has ducted air conditioning. We didn't even...

Alex Kessler (04:38)
Yup. Exactly.

Like it's like, it's this totally kind of blind spot between different areas.

Jess Kismet (04:45)
Mmm.

Alex Kessler (04:46)
Yup. It's crazy. So,

Jess Kismet (04:49)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (04:52)
so that happened and I was like, all right, well, I guess I'm screwed. So I brought in

Jess Kismet (04:56)
Yeah

Alex Kessler (04:56)
another, so I brought in another environmental consultant.

And this person told me to bring in fresh air by opening my windows instead. wow. Like, you know, that costs nothing. Right.

Jess Kismet (05:09)
That's cheap.

Alex Kessler (05:12)
It it costs nothing. Right. Wrong. It worked fine during the spring and fall when it was like, you know, mild and dry. But when the summer blew in to the northeastern US.

the humidity came with it. A lot of people don't know the northeastern US gets quite humid in the summer. I mean, I don't live there anymore, thank God.

Jess Kismet (05:36)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (05:38)
Let me just say as an aside, living in the northeastern US is like doing building science and air quality on hard mode. It can be done.

Jess Kismet (05:48)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (05:52)
immense amounts of snow, the humidity. I mean, there's so many different things that make creating a healthy home more difficult. It absolutely can be done. I don't want to make anybody think that, you know, you can't have a healthy home if you live in these regions, but it's hard mode. anyway,

Jess Kismet (06:10)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (06:11)
I move on. I'm going to move on. opening windows brought in a lot of moisture and led to mould growth, like around my sink in my shower.

And I could not stop sneezing like like actually and you asked my wife I would spend entire days sneezing and So that was the summer like so yeah, thanks opening windows is great and In the winter it was just way too cold to bring in more than like a really small amount of fresh air by opening windows People that live in warmer climates. I've lived in like so many different climates

People that live in warmer climates have no idea how impossible it is to bring fresh air into your home if the outdoor air is super cold. Yeah, I'm not talking about like 32 degrees Fahrenheit, AKA zero degrees Celsius. I'm talking about like significantly colder than that.

Jess Kismet (07:08)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (07:10)
Even 32 slash zero are cold and make it difficult, but a lot of places stay a lot colder than that for a

for long period of time. anyway, so that solution didn't work and here I am like, wait, I'm not getting helped. I brought in like three people at this point and I'm still not getting helped.

Jess Kismet (07:33)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (07:35)
So then I was told by another mould

Jess Kismet (07:36)
you

Alex Kessler (07:37)
inspector, I got another mould inspector in there because I was not feeling better. And he said, buy a HEPA air purifier. So I got a bunch of well-regarded, you the top brands.

expensive hepas that claimed to be oversized for the rooms I was using them in. You know, the ones that say it covers a thousand square feet. And I felt like they weren't really doing anything. And sure enough, I continued sneezing. I did not feel any relief. So I've come to believe that each of these recommendations was either incomplete, inappropriate for my climate at the time, or just wrong.

And I'm not blaming the people that came over. They, you know, they were just doing what they were told by the people who came before them. But I mean, these ways of thinking are the old way, you know, the way, the way it's been done. Do you, do you like

Jess Kismet (08:31)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (08:33)
our culture? Does anyone listening to this like think our culture is good? We don't, we don't do things

Jess Kismet (08:37)
Yeah

Alex Kessler (08:40)
well. The healthcare system sucks. The environmental system sucks. The food sucks. I mean, everything sucks.

Like, so, so I don't want to perpetuate the way things have been done. I care about, I never have cared about the way things have been done. I don't care about somebody having some certification who was told to do this by the person. I mean, all I care about is the way that works. So in order to prevent my health from continuing to decline, I was forced to become my own environmental professional and.

What helped me do that is that I'm a translational scientist in cancer genomics, which means I bridged the gap between research and real world practice. So that means I actually just quit my job. So

Jess Kismet (09:32)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (09:33)
I don't do that anymore. of like now, now I'm an environmental consultant full. Thank you. No, you

Jess Kismet (09:37)
Congratulations, I think.

Alex Kessler (09:41)
think I know. Yes, it's definitely a congratulations.

Jess Kismet (09:46)
Good.

Alex Kessler (09:48)
Yeah.

I used to read research studies for a living and figure out how to apply their findings in like a practical way. So throughout my career, I've learned that data is only useful if it's the right data and you know what to do with it. And I ultimately became Healthy Home Guide because I saw a lack of solutions. You know, when people's homes make them sick, they generally have three options, right? One, build a new home from scratch. For almost everyone, this is not feasible.

Two, completely gut your current home and rip out everything, replace it with the most state of the art stuff. Also really expensive, really invasive, not feasible for most people, feasible for some. And then there was a need for another approach besides that. So my approach became basically to work with what you have. So you know the quote, give a person a fish and you feed them for a day, teach a person to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.

Jess Kismet (10:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yep. I say that to my kids all the time.

Alex Kessler (10:48)
You know that quote? I teach them, I teach them. nice, so you're familiar.

I teach people how to fish. In other words, I teach you to be your own indoor air quality expert. And it's a skill that if you're environmentally sensitive, you need to use for life no matter where you live. So it brings me the deepest feeling of purpose to be of service for people who are super sick from their homes.

and I did not have good help when I needed it. You I had to figure things out for myself and I do not want others to go through what I went through.

Jess Kismet (11:27)
Well, that all sounds amazing. So we first started our conversation about air because I bought an Innova air purifier. So we started chatting about that. So let's get into it because I had some questions after I posted about my air purifier, about what was good, what was bad, et cetera. So there's a lot of marketing around air purifiers.

I that the one that I bought is marketed very heavily as the absolute, know, ducks guts as they say in Australia. Can

Alex Kessler (11:58)
You

Jess Kismet (11:59)
you walk us through the main technologies in air purifiers? HEPA, activated carbon, ionizers, UV, whatever else you can tell us. What's worth the money and what should people avoid?

Alex Kessler (12:16)
Let's do it.

I

So fun fact, I don't recommend standard H13 rated HEPA air purifiers for most applications.

Jess Kismet (12:28)
what's H 13.

Alex Kessler (12:29)
H13, so there are different ratings as far as how restrictive and efficient a HEPA filter is.

Jess Kismet (12:38)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (12:39)
It's like H11, H12, H13. H13 is 99.97 % efficient.

in a simple sense. And H12 is less efficient. H11 is less efficient than that, more like 95 % efficient. yeah, so H13 is more restrictive, doesn't let as many particles through on a single pass. That makes sense?

Jess Kismet (13:10)
Is that the same between the US and Australia? Is there any like terminology differences or that you're aware of?

Alex Kessler (13:18)
Not that I'm aware of,

Jess Kismet (13:20)
Mm-hmm, okay.

Alex Kessler (13:21)
In Europe, there is. So here's why I don't recommend standard HEPA air purifiers for most applications.

I'm sure you've seen the HEPA ads saying like, you know, this air purifier removes 99.97 % of particles, right?

Jess Kismet (13:40)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (13:40)
And that means the filter barely lets any particles through on a single pass of air.

So HEPA filters are highly efficient,

Jess Kismet (13:47)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (13:50)
meaning they exhaust almost perfectly pure air. However, that efficiency usually comes at a higher resistance at a given size. So in the real world,

When you talk about buying an air purifier to use in your home, most HEPA units move less air. So in a home, pushing out small amounts of perfectly pure air that immediately mixes with the rest of the dirty air in the room is just not the fastest way to drop particle levels. So in contrast,

Merv 13 filters. So, you know, the filters you use in your HVAC system are less efficient.

Jess Kismet (14:37)
I love that you've got one. Here's

one I prepared earlier.

Alex Kessler (14:40)
That's right.

Jess Kismet (14:43)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (14:43)
MERV-13 filters are less efficient. So they're not 99.97 % efficient like HEPA. They're around 50 to 90 % efficient depending on particle size. So MERV-13 filters do not make each pass of air as pure, but they preserve airflow. So MERV-13 strikes an almost perfect balance.

between efficiency and airflow. And because of that, MERV-13 air purifiers often capture more particulate per minute than HEPA. And the metric that tells you that is clean air delivery rate or CADR. I'm gonna be saying CADR going forward in this episode.

Jess Kismet (15:30)
Okay.

Alex Kessler (15:34)
the metric that you use to assess air purifier performance

is not area and it's not the efficiency of a filter. It is the rate at which the air purifier captures particles. Everything else is indirect and removed from what really matters, particulate capture.

Jess Kismet (16:01)
guess that 99.97

number makes us that to me says that it's moving 99.97 % of particles. Right, that's that's what

Alex Kessler (16:12)
Right.

Jess Kismet (16:12)
the marketing tells my brain.

Alex Kessler (16:14)
Right, exactly,

so that's where it's deceptive. What that number means is that it's removing 99.97 % of particles when air flows through it one time. It doesn't remove, it does not allow a very high volume of air to pass through it. So it's not removing 99.97 % of the particles in your room.

It's removing 99.97 % of the particles in the very small volume of air that's currently passing through it.

So because of that, Merv 13 air purifiers tend to be quieter and consume less energy. So HEPA air purifiers, they tend to have like, you know, a little filter and you really need a huge fan, really powerful fan to pull air through that little filter. And therefore,

HEPA units are super loud, they tend to be super loud, and they tend to consume 10 times more energy than MERV 13 air purifiers. So for a given

Jess Kismet (17:33)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (17:35)
size and sound level, HEPA can match or beat MERV 13 only with lots more filter area or more fan power, which means bigger, louder, and more expensive units. So...

Jess Kismet (17:49)
My unit's

already huge. Like my unit sits, like it's a metre off the ground and it's yay big. Like they take up space.

Alex Kessler (17:56)
Right,

Jess Kismet (17:58)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (17:58)
so if you want a HEPA that performs well, you're gonna have to get a really, really expensive unit that's heavy, large, and yeah, and if you don't get one that's super heavy, large, and expensive, then you're gonna have to turn the one that you do have, let's say it's a medium-sized one, in order for that to be...

effective, very effective, as effective as a MERV-13 13 option. You're going to have to turn that on turbo speed because most HEPA brands do not publish clean air delivery rate, by the way, and those that do measure it on their turbo setting. So if a HEPA is advertised to give, let's say, 250 CFM CADR that number is from its noisiest speed, not the speed most people use. Most people use

the lowest speed or they put it on automatic mode. So at a quiet or low medium speed, real clean air delivery rate is often closer to a quarter or half of what's advertised. So if your unit says that it covers, first of all, if your unit says it covers 1,000 square feet, that's if you're running it on super loud mode. And also 1,000 square feet is not a scientific way to measure the efficacy of an air purifier.

It just measures the size of a room. It doesn't measure

Jess Kismet (19:22)
Mm. Mm.

Alex Kessler (19:24)
the rate at which it captures particles. here are the key principles. It matters less what percentage of the air comes out perfectly pure than how much particulate is removed per minute. And again, CADR tells you that. Nothing else does. So the bottom line.

is in an hour, a MERV 13 air filtration device will pass the air more times than a HEPA air filtration device, which more than makes up for the lower efficiency per pass.

Jess Kismet (19:59)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (20:00)
And there's a lot of research on this. So if you're interested in, if you are skeptical of what I'm saying, any listeners, if you're skeptical and you wanna be like, okay, makes sense what he's saying, but let's see the numbers.

Lots of studies, so look at my videos and I go through them and help you understand. So there's also a lot of studies that show that MERV-13 air purifiers capture ultrafine particles. This is another kind of marketing thing for HEPA, is they're like, only HEPAs can capture ultrafine particles. Not true.

Jess Kismet (20:40)
you

Alex Kessler (20:42)
I want to...

kind of go through some evidence for this. so yeah, so there are studies, but I want to explain it because...

This is a big counter argument that I get, is people going, hmm, less restrictive filters than HEPA, can't do ultrafine particle capture as well. And they lay out all sorts of kind of theoretical arguments for why that is. So let me dispute it. So, their analysis, so when people say you need a HEPA to capture ultrafines, their analysis centers on, once again, single pass.

ultrafine capture efficiency. The air that flows through it once, it captures 99.97 % of particles. That is a filter media metric. That's not a room level performance metric. So what determines exposure reduction in practice is total clean air delivered to the space over time. So HEPA filters are extremely efficient and they remain highly efficient across all

size ranges of particles, large particles, medium size, fine and ultrafine. They're equally good across all particle sizes. So their ultrafine performance is not uniquely special relative to their already high overall efficiency. isolating ultrafine capture as the decisive factor overstates its distinctiveness. MERV 13 filters have

lower single pass efficiency, including in the ultrafine range. they're low, MERV 13 are lower for much of the range. Fine, ultrafine, medium, and MERV 13 filters are more efficient for larger particles.

In real world residential configurations, the reason why MERV-13 can compensate for that lower efficiency is because they operate at substantially higher airflow. because room concentration declines according to total removal rate, not per pass penetration, higher flow MERV-13 air purifiers tend to achieve superior in-room particulate reduction.

when cost, noise, and energy use are equivalent. And tons of studies show this. This is not theory. This is using actual tests that compare air purifiers. So yeah, I just wanted to speak to that. But yeah, that's the deal, Jess.

Jess Kismet (23:32)
Okay, so MERV-13 is the go over a HEPA filter in a residential setting. How do we, like do you have, can you get, I think he's mentioned at the beginning of this question that that filter comes in a ducted system. that, right? How do you, is there standalone systems that have those filters in them? Like the one I have is a HEPA filter and it's a standalone system and I can move it around my house and it's fairly versatile.

How does that work with the MERV-13 system? Because I've never heard

Alex Kessler (24:07)
This is a great question.

Jess Kismet (24:08)
of it.

Alex Kessler (24:09)
Yeah, this is a fantastic question. So, MERV-13 has, I think is like, has been slow to reach Australia.

Jess Kismet (24:17)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (24:19)
I know that, so I've worked with some Australian clients and I know that MERV-13 HVAC filters are not readily available.

Jess Kismet (24:29)
Okay.

Alex Kessler (24:30)
So, for Aussies, I recommend,

less restrictive HEPA filters. Like H11 HEPA filters, can find these like IKEA Starkvend sells these.

Jess Kismet (24:45)
Okay.

Alex Kessler (24:47)
yeah, just also the Air Fanta 3 Pro air purifier is a less restrictive HEPA filter as well. It's also H11. So that's another good option. It's a hundred.

60 US dollars not sure how much Australian but probably similar similarly cheap and It's a Chinese air purifier that is less restrictive and I often recommend it for Aussies and If you do like clean air delivery rate per dollar it is Way better than virtually

Jess Kismet (25:26)
You

Alex Kessler (25:26)
all hepas that are available So that's a good option

But the way that we do it, and I'm sure this will be available, by the way, this will be available to you Aussies soon, okay? I know that companies that make MERV-13 13 air purifiers are looking to expand into Australia. And Clean Air Kits is one of them. Don't quote me on this, this

Jess Kismet (25:50)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (25:50)
isn't from them, this isn't from them, this is from me. But they make really great air purifiers that just have MERV-13 13 filters in them.

And what they look like is usually just like a box made of these filters.

Jess Kismet (26:07)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (26:08)
And then on the top of the box is PC fans or like a big 20 inch box fan just blowing up. So yeah, massive filter surface area, low cost,

Jess Kismet (26:19)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (26:20)
low noise and low energy use. This is the way of the future.

Jess Kismet (26:26)
Okay, well I will put some links in the show notes for those products and things that you've just mentioned so if anyone wants to look a little bit further into that just head to the link in the description and it'll take you to the website. I'll also, Alex, you could send me if you've got any links to the research about the difference between the two types of filtration systems there might be some interest in that too so I'll link that. That'd

Alex Kessler (26:51)
Sure, sounds good.

Jess Kismet (26:52)
be great. So

You've been talking about ultrafine particles and and CADR and all this sort of stuff. But if somebody wants to measure their home quality, the layperson wants to measure their home's air quality, where do they start?

You you talk about, you mentioned mass versus counts. I have no idea what that means. Could you break that down for us what it, why it matters and how somebody uses information about their indoor air quality monitoring to make decisions about their home?

Alex Kessler (27:30)
Great question. So there's a million different ways to measure air quality. I try to find the ways that are the most practical. So let's talk about measuring particulate matter in the air. Particulate, what is particulate? Well, it's a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets. So this includes mould spores, hyphal fragments, which are like the roots of mould, extracellular

Jess Kismet (27:54)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (27:55)
debris that mycotoxins ride on.

endotoxins, are like from sewer leaks or other fecal sources, actinobacteria, viruses, pet dander, smoke, pollen, and other biologically active materials. They're all particles. Many of the inflammatory triggers in mouldy homes are fine, lightweight particles, and we call this dust. There's a few different ways that we can be exposed to it, right? Most people think, okay, inhalation.

You breathe it in. Well, there's also skin absorption, unfortunately. And we also like eat, like a study by the EPA showed that we eat like a pill's worth of dust every day, like a little pill. So,

Jess Kismet (28:46)
Hahaha

Alex Kessler (28:50)
so the vast majority of sources on and off the internet, I don't think, this is just like my opinion. This is,

I think they specify the correct way to measure dust in mouldy homes. So I'll explain. most popular indoor air quality monitors report a certain metric. They report mass concentration and it's usually expressed as like PM PM 2.5 or PM 10. And you can tell it's mass. If you're wondering, how do I know what mine does? You can tell it's mass because it gives the unit in

micrograms per cubic meter. So this metric tells you the total mass of all particles in a given volume of air. I prefer a different metric. I prefer number concentration, which is also called particle count. And it just measures how many particles are present in a given volume of air. It doesn't care about their mass. It cares about how many there are.

And why I like this is because fine particles don't weigh much, but they matter a lot. Like mould fragments, mycotoxin carrying debris and fine dust from contaminated building materials are often very fine and lightweight. So you can have millions of particles floating in the air that collectively weigh very little. Mass based monitors largely ignore these because the total mass doesn't change that much, even though exposure has increased.

a in the tests I've done, this discrepancy is super obvious. Like I did a test where I shook out a towel that had been sitting in like a musty mouldy crawl space for a year and

Jess Kismet (30:39)
Mm. Mm.

Alex Kessler (30:40)
a particle count monitor, the dials DC 1100 pro registered poor air quality appropriately, right? You shake out a mouldy towel

Jess Kismet (30:51)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (30:53)
like for like

five minutes straight, something should happen to your air.

Jess Kismet (30:59)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (31:00)
but a very popular, well-regarded mass-based monitor barely registered any change at all. It still said the air quality was good. I won't name the brand on this podcast, but you can see it in a YouTube video of mine if you're interested. And so in other words, the room was, yep.

Jess Kismet (31:17)
I just want to show you something. Sorry to interrupt you. I have a

Alex Kessler (31:19)
Yeah. No, no.

Jess Kismet (31:22)
monitor in my home and this is what it's showing me for particular matter, PM 2.5.

Can you see that?

Alex Kessler (31:33)
I can see the fluctuations, but I can't see the numbers.

Jess Kismet (31:36)
Yeah,

okay, so for the listener who's not watching on video, I have a air monitor in my house and it measures all sorts of different things. Particulate matter, PM2.5 is one of them, and it's fluctuating between seven micrograms per cubic meter, which is mass, right, up to, let's say 24, 25 micrograms per cubic meter over the last day. So what does that mean?

Alex Kessler (32:05)
Great question. So I'm saying great question a lot because your questions are good.

Jess Kismet (32:12)
Good.

Alex Kessler (32:16)
So what I'm not saying is that mass-based air quality monitors are useless. Agencies use them for outdoor air standards because they're fantastic at determining your dose of heavy combustion byproducts, like from urban pollution, wildfire smoke, this kind of thing. Products of combustion. I just feel they're not great for indoor lightweight

dust.

Jess Kismet (32:49)
Like when I

cook, if my kitchen's right there, I've got a little spot here and when I cook, that PM goes woof up to like 100, 120. And I'm like, is that bad? Okay.

Alex Kessler (32:59)
Yes. Yes. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

There are a few different things you could do about that. One is having like a really good kitchen exhaust system, like above your stove. Yeah.

Jess Kismet (33:16)
Yeah, the exhaust here is rubbish.

Alex Kessler (33:20)
And another is air purification strategies. And another is like filtered fresh air intake. but, but yeah. So, so what,

What a mass-based monitor is great at is measuring cooking pollution. So cooking pollution involves combustion. It involves

Jess Kismet (33:40)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (33:41)
bringing things up to a higher temperature. And that creates more massive particles. So if you have a mass-based monitor, it's great for that. If you have a mass-based monitor and you know,

All houses have a lot of air leaks, you know? So, and when you open up the windows, outdoor air comes in. Outdoor air is generally full of more massive particles from industry, cars, burning of fuels, different sort of combustion processes. So your mass-based monitor is going to pick up on that kind of stuff. But if you're in a house that is very

dusty and you want to understand kind of the resuspension of dust. So dust that is like settled on a surface and gets cast into the air. like walking, cleaning, shaking out fabrics, HVAC cycling, the stack effect, negative pressure, and just air circulating through a house over surfaces and disturbing dust.

That often causes symptom flares, even when PM2.5 looks okay. So what I'm not saying is that nobody should ever use a mass-based monitor. They have their use, but they have their blind spots in certain situations.

Jess Kismet (35:12)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, PM 2.5, useful in some situations, but within a broader context. What else should we be monitoring for our healthy, for our home's health?

Alex Kessler (35:25)
Before I get to that I'll say the way I use the Dylos, and by the way I'm not sponsored by them at all, I just like their unit,

Jess Kismet (35:33)
Okay.

Alex Kessler (35:34)
is I try to keep the particle count below 150. Yeah,

Jess Kismet (35:39)
So what's a dialo—sorry, is that a monitor?

Alex Kessler (35:42)
the Dylos is this. I'll actually show you right now.

Jess Kismet (35:45)
Okay, and for anyone who's not watching the video, I'll link it.

Alex Kessler (35:51)
So I tend to look at this number on the left. It says

Jess Kismet (35:57)
Yep.

Alex Kessler (35:58)
75. It's going down. I just disturbed some dust, so it was high when I first started it.

Jess Kismet (36:04)
You have.

Alex Kessler (36:06)
And now it's going down, and it says 44, 42, 40, 38. I prefer to keep this number.

Jess Kismet (36:12)
wow, it's dropping that quickly.

Alex Kessler (36:15)
Yep. See, that is a good demonstration of how

air moves and how dust flows through your house. So this gives you a really good indication

Jess Kismet (36:22)
Yeah, right.

Alex Kessler (36:24)
of that helps you create a space that's not as full of biotoxin laden dust. So I try to keep that number that I was pointed to on the left below 150. And the way you can do that is with all sorts of strategies that I'm going to go through. So yeah.

Jess Kismet (36:46)
Okay.

Okay, so what is...

Alex Kessler (36:50)
the other question, yeah.

Yeah. The other question you asked was other things that are important to measure and,

Jess Kismet (36:56)
Yep.

Alex Kessler (36:57)
other things like, so CO2 is super important because CO2 in and of itself, there's some debate as far as like whether CO2, high CO2 is harmful. mean, it seems to be, but I think what's more harmful is when CO2 rises.

That means that not a lot of fresh air is coming into your space to dilute whatever's in your air. So CO2 is basically a proxy for how well you're ventilating. for people with CIRS, I prefer to keep CO2 below 600 parts per million. And for everyone else, think 800. Does

Jess Kismet (37:38)
that ever happen?

Alex Kessler (37:40)
that ever happen? Absolutely.

Jess Kismet (37:42)
I've

got my house at the moment is 565 parts per million. That's pretty good.

Alex Kessler (37:49)
And that is likely,

Jess Kismet (37:50)
my little

Alex Kessler (37:51)
that's very good. Yeah. And you have a really good monitor, the Aranet 4. That's what I would recommend.

Jess Kismet (37:56)
I love my

Aronette 4. I take it with me on holidays.

Alex Kessler (37:59)
Me too.

So that gives us some additional insight into the reason why your mass-based readings might be elevated, because you're bringing a lot of outdoor air into your space, right?

Jess Kismet (38:15)
Well no, at the moment everything is closed. I've woken up, it's morning here, so I've sort of come to my desk and I've not even opened a window yet. I should have, but I haven't because I don't want outdoor noise while we're recording.

Alex Kessler (38:29)
Is anyone else in the house with you?

Jess Kismet (38:31)
No.

Alex Kessler (38:33)
So that's probably an indication of why your account is so low. People, yeah.

Jess Kismet (38:37)
Yes, yes in my bedroom

if I close my bedroom door overnight that will shoot up to 2000 easily

Alex Kessler (38:44)
interesting. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. So, yep. So the CO2 is good to measure. Humidity is also good to measure. I measure humidity in a different way than most people. I don't use relative humidity. This subject is really, really complicated. So in the interest of time, I'll point you guys to my channel if you're, or you can contact me directly.

Jess Kismet (39:10)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (39:10)
But yeah, I'll say CO2, humidity in particular, probably the top three I'd measure.

Jess Kismet (39:16)
Okay great. Yeah and will, have you got a particular video that you want to point us to for that topic? Or a series?

Alex Kessler (39:25)
Yep,

have a dehumidification video that's good for that.

Jess Kismet (39:30)
Okay, link it in the show notes.

Alex Kessler (39:33)
Sounds good.

Jess Kismet (39:36)
So energy recovery and heat recovery ventilators are something builders are increasingly hearing about. It's a hot topic in my part of the industry. Air tightness, energy and heat recovery ventilation. They're often seen as complicated or expensive. So you advocate for the DIY fresh air intake installations. Can you walk us through?

the difference between these and is that kind of motivated DIYer do this themselves?

Alex Kessler (40:09)
Yes, I love this question because fresh air is my favorite. I think, so, so if I'm successful in my air quality improvement thing with clients, I make their indoor air as close as possible to outdoor air on a good day, on a, on on the best possible air quality day that you can imagine.

Jess Kismet (40:35)
Like Swiss Alps air.

Alex Kessler (40:37)
Yes, yes, outdoor air. So

my approach is not to sterilize and kill back there. That's not me. My approach is let's get natural. So that's why

Jess Kismet (40:52)
You

Alex Kessler (40:53)
I like energy recovery ventilators. Energy recovery ventilators, what they do, there's like a science behind what they do. I don't think it's that interesting for the purpose of this conversation. So practically what they do,

is no matter what the outdoor temperature is, they deliver near room temperature, fresh air that's beautifully filtered and a good portion of the humidity outdoors, if it's humid outside, is left outside. Not all of it, but a good portion. That's great because opening windows, you know, is limited. I've talked a little bit about why opening windows is limited earlier in the podcast.

you know, opening windows for a lot of people, a lot of people don't get that much fresh air coming in through their window when they open it and they, they, they think, the windows open. I'm ventilating. A lot of times there's not a very good cross breeze.

Jess Kismet (41:51)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (41:52)
so. Energy recovery ventilators also take care. Not only do they take care of humidity and temperature, but they also take care of the flow. a continuous flow. I.

think they're the biggest game changer that exists for people with environmental sensitivities. There exists a faction of people called the mould avoiders. These people, have you heard of them?

Jess Kismet (42:20)
Okay.

No.

Alex Kessler (42:24)
So these people have come to believe that you need to live outside for a prolonged period of time to heal from biotoxin illness. Now,

Jess Kismet (42:36)
I've heard of people living in their back gardens in tents and things to get out of their contaminated homes.

Alex Kessler (42:44)
Right. So the mould avoiders take it one step further.

Jess Kismet (42:50)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (42:50)
They believe that the outdoor air is extremely contaminated by certain strange toxins and that you need to not only get out of your mouldy home, but you need to get into areas of the world that don't have these unidentified mystery toxins. So it's a very radical philosophy.

Jess Kismet (43:13)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (43:15)
now I'm not, I'm only, I'm only a human, so I can't say for sure whether they're wrong or right. But what I can say is that I believe there are alternatives to the radical, protocol that they adhere to to live outside is something that is traumatic and not feasible.

So, I mean, some people do it, power to you. If you can do it, well, power to you. I think most people, I don't think it's Especially if you don't have a large amount of money saved up. yeah, so in these cases, I think energy recovery ventilators are an absolute godsend. And if you rent,

What do do? You can't have someone install it in your HVAC system. You're a renter.

you're screwed if you're a renter, right? But according to what the industry tells you. But I don't believe you're screwed because I would not accept that. So

Jess Kismet (44:33)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (44:34)
I figured out a way to install a really professional, balanced, automatic balancing, energy recovery ventilator in my window. And I did it for 1500 US dollars.

the, what

Jess Kismet (44:51)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (44:51)
you would have to pay to have an HVAC. First of all, most areas don't have an HVAC professional that can do this for you. Some big cities do, but it generally costs a lot of money and a lot of professionals claim they can do it right. But what I see when I consult with people is that they end up not installing it right. Almost always. So installing it in a window,

is a fantastic strategy for somebody that's just like, want my air. I want to take my air into my hands and not rely on the terrible industry that doesn't help us. it, it, so, okay. So the first time I did it, it was challenging. So I made a video on, on YouTube where I teach you step by step how to do it.

Like literally you watch me do it, you can do it with me. It's not easy to do. You know, I'm not going to say it's simple. Um, first time I did it, it took me like probably a couple of hours. The, um, now I've done it so many times. Now I can do it in like half an hour. Um, so, you know, you can get good at it and then you can be able to do it in every home you have for the rest of your life. And, um, yeah.

Jess Kismet (46:16)
So can you give us a bit of a description

of how you did it and I'll obviously link the

Alex Kessler (46:20)
Yeah.

Jess Kismet (46:20)
video but how did you do that?

Alex Kessler (46:23)
Yeah.

So I took a corrugated plastic sheet and I cut it to the size of a little opening in my window. in order to do this, you need a vertical or horizontal sliding window. So you block off a little portion of it. You cut holes in the Coroplast insert and you put little, what do they call it? Like exhaust and intake vents.

like little plastic

Jess Kismet (46:56)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (46:56)
exhaust and intake vents in the holes. And then you

Jess Kismet (46:59)
Yep.

Alex Kessler (46:59)
just take some flex ducts and you hook it up to the ducts. Or you hook it up to the, I always forget what they're called, like exhaust intake vents. Okay. And then,

Jess Kismet (47:11)
Yeah, yeah, that's good enough.

Alex Kessler (47:13)
yeah. And then you just hook them up to an energy recovery ventilator and you're good.

Jess Kismet (47:22)
Bob's your uncle

Alex Kessler (47:24)
That's right.

Jess Kismet (47:25)
Okay.

Alex Kessler (47:27)
So it's really not complicated.

Jess Kismet (47:30)
So you

just buy a unit, like a energy recovery

Alex Kessler (47:35)
Yeah.

Jess Kismet (47:35)
ventilation unit. Okay. Okay.

Alex Kessler (47:37)
Yep, you just buy an ERV. And,

yeah.

I had a client from Australia who he had a tough time finding one. So they're right

Jess Kismet (47:52)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Alex Kessler (47:54)
now not as easy to get for Aussies, but I think you still can get some. I'm not exactly

Jess Kismet (48:05)
Yeah, you can. think...

Alex Kessler (48:07)
sure which. Yeah.

Jess Kismet (48:08)
Yeah. They're mostly like... The ones that I see... They're like wall units.

Like we do have the whole of home ducted units for energy recovery and heat recovery ventilation, but there are some what they call decentralized wall units that kind of just go, you kind of a hole in the wall, similar to what you're talking about in the window that they get installed in a wall. So I wonder if it's the same thing. Similar.

Alex Kessler (48:38)
Yeah, interesting.

Jess Kismet (48:40)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (48:42)
Yeah, like generally,

Jess Kismet (48:43)
Yep.

Alex Kessler (48:45)
if you can install a unit in an HVAC system, then you generally can install it in a window. I'm not going to

Jess Kismet (48:53)
Mmm.

Alex Kessler (48:53)
say that's true in every case, but probably most cases. Yeah, like I use like an industry

Jess Kismet (48:58)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (49:01)
standard ERV, like a Brone AI Series ERV in my window.

Jess Kismet (49:05)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (49:06)
You can actually see it. I'll point the camera towards it. It's right there.

Jess Kismet (49:08)
Okay. wow!

There it is. that's cool. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, very

Alex Kessler (49:17)
Yep. Put my money where my mouth is, Jess, yeah. Back it up, back it up.

Jess Kismet (49:24)
creative of you. Solution orientated. I like it.

Alex Kessler (49:29)
Thank you. Yeah, I mean,

I just want to feel better. I felt so bad for so long and this really helped me. So, yeah.

Jess Kismet (49:38)
Yeah,

that's that scientific brain at work.

Alex Kessler (49:43)
That's right.

Jess Kismet (49:45)
So going back to air purifiers for a second A lot of people do what I did. They buy an air purifier and plonk it in the corner.

And it's kind of just expect that it's gonna do its thing But how how should we actually size a unit for a room and how does the placement affect its effectiveness? because I can move mine around my house and in different places, but I'm like well should I just live in the bedroom because That's where I spend most of my time when I'm home sleeping Like well, how much does that matter should it follow me around the

Alex Kessler (50:17)
So.

Jess Kismet (50:18)
house?

Alex Kessler (50:22)
If you only have one air purifier, see, I wouldn't advocate that someone bring their air purifier around with them because I just think it's kind of a laborious thing.

Jess Kismet (50:37)
Mmm.

Alex Kessler (50:39)
Instead of that, I would advocate for purchasing multiple cheaper air purifiers.

Jess Kismet (50:44)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (50:46)
so the way I did, but if you only have one, probably yeah.

you probably would want to take it with you to be in the spaces you spend most of your time. So as far as like sizing and placement, in most scenarios, as long as you keep the air purifier like at least six inches or you guys use centimeters, right? Yeah. So like

Jess Kismet (51:11)
Cinematas. Yep.

Alex Kessler (51:14)
12 centimeters or something from a wall. Yeah. 15

Jess Kismet (51:16)
15,

Alex Kessler (51:18)
placement.

shouldn't impact performance too much. So 15 centimeters,

Jess Kismet (51:23)
Okay, so you just need to make sure it's got airflow around it.

Alex Kessler (51:27)
exactly.

Jess Kismet (51:28)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (51:28)
So that being said, air purifier

Jess Kismet (51:30)
Thank

Alex Kessler (51:31)
sizing based on room area does definitely matter. So you might be wondering, well, what about my HEPA? I mean, it's super expensive and it covers areas up to a thousand square feet. So like I said,

Area is not a scientific way of measuring air purifier performance. Clean air delivery rate is. So how do we size? So I think clean air delivery rate should be a bit less than twice the room area for people with CIRS. And you can use multiple air purifiers to achieve this and you can keep your old air purifiers to help you. So no need to throw them out. So here's an example. I'm gonna use square feet because it's the metric I know, sorry.

Jess Kismet (52:17)
No, that's fine.

Alex Kessler (52:19)
in my kitchen slash living space, is actually no, let me use a bedroom. Okay, let's say my bedroom is 200 square feet. Okay. So I need the air purifiers or air purifier that I have in that room to equal a clean air delivery rate of around twice that room area in CFM. So

Jess Kismet (52:45)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (52:46)
example, right? So

Let's say your room is 200 square feet. You want your clean air delivery rate to be like maybe a little less than twice that. 200 times two is 400. So you want your air purifiers to equal 400 CFM clean air delivery rate. You can also do a little less. That's people

Jess Kismet (53:07)
And that's for people with CIRS or that's everybody.

Alex Kessler (53:10)
who are environmentally sensitive and or have

Jess Kismet (53:13)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (53:13)
CIRS

Jess Kismet (53:16)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (53:18)
However, and I would say do that in every room you spend significant time in because the more air purifiers you have around your house, the more you'll capture the bulk of the particulate that's in the air. If you only have one air purifier, then that air purifier isn't gonna capture very much of the total particles in your home. So that's that.

To answer your question, so what will my other family members that aren't environmentally sensitive or don't have CIRS think? Well, I'll say this, a study came out recently that showed that having an air purifier in your space significantly lowers blood pressure. So air purifiers are good for everyone. And there's

Jess Kismet (54:05)
Yeah, right.

Alex Kessler (54:06)
plenty of additional research showing lots of other benefits too. So yeah. I think the more the merrier. I

Jess Kismet (54:12)
Interesting.

Alex Kessler (54:14)
mean obviously you have to balance the amount with

you know, costs and with space

Jess Kismet (54:18)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (54:19)
and all that, but yeah.

Jess Kismet (54:22)
So air purifiers and ERVs and HRVs. Which one's better?

because an HRV isn't purifying air, it's just filtering or an ERV is just filtering outdoor air coming in. someone with CIRS, should they have both ideally or environmental sensitivity?

Alex Kessler (54:45)
Definitely, yeah.

Jess Kismet (54:47)
Yeah, okay.

Alex Kessler (54:50)
so on ERV, by the way, I wouldn't recommend HRVs for almost all scenarios because HRVs don't deal with moisture. ERVs

Jess Kismet (54:59)
Hmm.

Alex Kessler (55:00)
manage moisture. yeah, HRVs, if it's the summer and it's humid out, will bring all that humidity inside, which is a big problem.

Jess Kismet (55:09)
Yeah well I'm in

Adelaide so we don't have a great deal of like it's pretty dry air here.

Alex Kessler (55:15)
There you go, so that's good.

So, okay, you can MERV 13 filter or HEPA filter your fresh air intake on your ERV. So they shouldn't introduce a large amount of particles. And also the

Jess Kismet (55:31)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (55:32)
particles that, yeah, so there's that. But

Jess Kismet (55:35)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (55:36)
air purifiers help with kind of the indoor generated particulate, like from a mouldy home, yeah.

Jess Kismet (55:43)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Kessler (55:46)
And also, like honestly, like fresh air dilutes those as well. So they both like kind of do it in different ways, like air purifiers capture it and

Jess Kismet (55:53)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Alex Kessler (55:55)
fresh air dilutes it. So I would say both.

Jess Kismet (55:58)
Yep,

yep, yep. Two pronged approach. Yeah,

Alex Kessler (56:02)
Yeah, exactly.

Jess Kismet (56:03)
okay. So given that mould is such a big topic for our audience, your audience and my audience, what role can an air purifier realistically play in a mouldy building?

they affect are they more effective at removing particulate like but PM 2.5 and you know managing like it what is is there a direct correlation what's the direct correlation I guess I'm trying to get at between mould spores and air purifiers because I thought that air purifiers didn't actually attack mould spores or didn't

Is that wrong?

Alex Kessler (56:47)
So air purifiers capture particles in the air. And mouldy material, so mouldy dust, is particles. And they're between, usually between one and 50 micrometers. So air purifiers easily handle

particulate in that size range. They really handle all sizes of particulate from ultra fine to large.

Jess Kismet (57:17)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (57:20)
So air purifiers absolutely can capture mouldy material as it's simply particulate, but they're limited. So they can't single-handedly address a mould issue. They

Jess Kismet (57:34)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (57:34)
tend to, so quantitatively, like let's quantitate it, quantify it, mean.

Air purifiers can reduce airborne particle counts by like, if you do it effectively, by 80 to 90%. And there's lots of data on that. But they have critical limitations. much of

Jess Kismet (57:51)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (57:55)
the dust in your home settles on horizontal surfaces, know, floors and counters. And air purifiers can't deal with that. So walking, sitting, you know, daily activities resuspend these settled particles.

creating localized clouds around you. So even the best air purifiers take time to capture these clouds and you're exposed while the air purifier works. There's also multiple exposure routes, like I said. So inhalation, there's also skin absorption. So fat soluble biotoxins, like for example, stachybotrys, the mould species, produces a biotoxin called satratoxin. That passes directly through the skin.

when you touch contaminated surfaces or walk barefoot. Like if you walk barefoot around your house or walk to the bathroom, yeah. And another route, like I said earlier, is ingestion. So air purifiers only directly address inhalation and even then with a delay. And most people don't air purify properly. So that's also a limitation. know, like if you ask me, can air purifiers deal with a mould problem?

Yeah, if you size your air purifier properly and you have the correct clean air delivery rate for your space. Almost no one does. yeah, so

Jess Kismet (59:14)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (59:17)
that's why air purifiers get kind of an incomplete wrap, so to speak.

Jess Kismet (59:22)
Okay.

Alex Kessler (59:23)
Yeah.

Jess Kismet (59:24)
So is the CADR cleaner delivery rate, is that like the same way that the filtration rate 99.97 % blah blah blah is on all of the marketing? Where do find the CADR? Is that in like buried deep in the manual somewhere? Or like how do we find that number?

Alex Kessler (59:41)
Great question. So most popular HEPA brands don't give you a CADR because their CADR

Jess Kismet (59:48)
Okay.

Alex Kessler (59:49)
are not good. They're generally not good. Some brands do give you a clean air delivery rate and that's generally buried in the specifications, usually not highlighted.

Jess Kismet (1:00:04)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:00:05)
It is completely separate from the 99.97 % efficiency number.

Jess Kismet (1:00:10)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:00:10)
So

it has, it's informed by it, but has, you know, but it's, it's separate. Yeah. I can explain that more if you want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jess Kismet (1:00:20)
Okay, no, that's fine.

Is there a number that's good for clean air delivery rate or is it is it contextual to the unit or to the space or to the. Go take us back to the beginning of the conversation where we introduced this concept.

and remind me, is there a good number?

Alex Kessler (1:00:42)
Absolutely, yeah, so I generally shoot for 250 CFM, CADR or more.

Jess Kismet (1:00:50)
Okay, that's right,

you did say that.

Alex Kessler (1:00:53)
I can't remember if I did or not. But, okay. So yeah, like

Jess Kismet (1:00:55)
I'm pretty sure you did.

Alex Kessler (1:00:59)
at least 250 CFM CADR on the

Jess Kismet (1:01:02)
Okay.

Alex Kessler (1:01:03)
speed you use.

Jess Kismet (1:01:05)
Yes, yes, because my, my,

Alex Kessler (1:01:06)
Yeah.

Jess Kismet (1:01:08)
thingy, my, my air purifier has got like, you know, zero to 10 or whatever. And I have it on one because otherwise if you turn it right up, it's like,

Alex Kessler (1:01:16)
Exactly. That's the problem. That's the problem with the state of our industry. Yeah. So,

yeah. So 250 CFM, I like, okay, just for a little aside, when you make

Jess Kismet (1:01:30)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:01:31)
a box out of these, so 20 by 20 inch box, and

Jess Kismet (1:01:36)
Yep.

Alex Kessler (1:01:37)
you put a 20 inch box fan on top of it, you can hit clean air delivery rates of 600 to 800.

CFM, CADR, which

Jess Kismet (1:01:46)
Woo!

Alex Kessler (1:01:49)
that tends to be, you know, anywhere between 10, 15 times more than what you get from most HEPAs on the speed that people run them at. And that's

Jess Kismet (1:02:03)
Mm-hmm

Alex Kessler (1:02:04)
why people are like, air purifiers don't address mould problems. Well, yeah, they

Jess Kismet (1:02:08)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (1:02:08)
don't address mould problems single-handedly ever, but

Jess Kismet (1:02:12)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (1:02:13)
they really help.

if you have a high enough cleaner delivery rate. So yeah. Yeah.

Jess Kismet (1:02:17)
Okay, all right.

Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that.

Alex Kessler (1:02:22)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Kismet (1:02:24)
Okay, most people know about standard mould testing. I'm not even sure what standard mould testing is to tell you the truth. It's just like, don't know, someone like me comes in, or a mould technician comes in and tests for your standard mould species in a house. But you talk about DIY techniques techniques that catch lesser known biotoxins that standard testing miss. Can you walk us through what they are and what's what we could do? What what

how we could test for those ourselves.

Alex Kessler (1:02:53)
Sure, so you can test your dust fairly easily with what's called an MSQ PCR test. It's otherwise known as like a dust test. two kind of tests that I like are Hertzmi2, H-E-R-T-S-M-I-2. Most of you, if you're into mould, have probably heard

Jess Kismet (1:03:19)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:03:21)
of it.

And then a lesser known one is testing for endotoxins. Endotoxins are associated with sewage leaks and other fecal exposure routes, like from like having a cat litter box near an HVAC return or having like a rodent infestation or just anything related to sewer-y stuff, like feces. Endotoxins have been found recently within the past 10, 20 years to drive illness.

Just as much as mould.

And yeah, so it's a really good idea to, know, what, what that, what that means practically is you take like a Swiffer kind of pad and you go around your house and test certain surfaces and then you send it to a lab and they tell you what your endotoxin concentration is. list,

Jess Kismet (1:04:16)
Okay.

Alex Kessler (1:04:18)
list biotech, micrometrics, like, yeah, there's a bunch of companies that do

dust tests and you don't want your endotoxin score to be above 100. So that's a really good one.

Jess Kismet (1:04:35)
Okay. And do you have a particular like, there a brand? Because I've heard of these hertsme and amy tests before. Is there a particular style or brand that's better than others or are they all pretty much the same?

Alex Kessler (1:04:54)
are pretty much the same, I

Jess Kismet (1:04:55)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:04:56)
would say. Yeah. Yup.

Jess Kismet (1:04:58)
Alright,

well if you've got a particular one that you like to recommend, we'll link that. Okay, so

Alex Kessler (1:05:04)
Sounds good.

Jess Kismet (1:05:05)
cleaning techniques in the home.

they can affect indoor air quality. Electrostatic charges on floors can actually attract particles. could you, this to me is a bit like, whoof, above my pay grade. So could you explain what that means and what proper cleaning techniques look like for good indoor air quality? Because I just mop, wipe, know, spray. What should I be doing?

Alex Kessler (1:05:39)
These are a game changer. So I've come to believe that a clean floor is often a better air purifier than an air purifier. So floors are synthetically coated and they're typically positively charged. While biotoxin particles like mould spores tend to be negatively charged. So they attract like magnets.

Jess Kismet (1:06:09)
Yeah, right.

Alex Kessler (1:06:10)
And there's other principles of physics that dictate this attraction, but I'm gonna kind of in the interest of time go over them or go past them. Your floor has a massive surface area to capture particles from the air. And as fine dust accumulates and forms like an invisible kind of chalky layer on your floor, the electrostatic and molecular charges

that attract particles get almost used up. So the floor loses its ability to attract and hold new particles, and so they stay airborne longer instead of settling. And so this is why your air quality can degrade even with air purifiers running. And so cleaning your floor properly is like changing your air filter. It restores that electrostatic charge and molecular binding capacity.

So.

Jess Kismet (1:07:09)
How did you figure this out? How do you know this stuff? Like, floors have a positive charge and mould spores have a negative charge?

Alex Kessler (1:07:23)
So the cleanroom industry has done millions of dollars worth of research on this kind of thing.

Jess Kismet (1:07:30)
my goodness.

Alex Kessler (1:07:32)
And so, yeah, so you can, we can use.

Jess Kismet (1:07:34)
That is like...

Alex Kessler (1:07:39)
Isn't that nuts? Yeah.

Jess Kismet (1:07:40)
Ha ha ha ha ha!

Alex Kessler (1:07:43)
So the idea is not to create a perfectly sterile space. And I'll get into kind of the background of that. But the idea is just to clean up this absolute crazy problem that we have now of like all of our buildings, you know, not all, but the majority of our buildings have mould problems and the materials that are used and the way that they're constructed and all this thing. So

We need to use methods like this to compensate for how bad the industry has done of a job on our homes and how much time has passed. mean, 60 years ago, there were lots of fine homes, because that's when like a lot of them were built. But now

Jess Kismet (1:08:26)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (1:08:26)
they've degraded. It's like we're we are face to face with like a degraded decaying

Jess Kismet (1:08:33)
Yeah.

Alex Kessler (1:08:34)
housing stock. And so it's either

it's either like they're either way too old the houses that are available now or they're built terribly so

Jess Kismet (1:08:43)
Mm.

Alex Kessler (1:08:43)
we gotta do stuff like this and i wish we didn't you know if we all built perfectly with like natural materials and and you know all that we wouldn't have to do this crap but

Jess Kismet (1:08:55)
So

what about carpet? Like when you're talking about floors, are you talking about vinyl floors, timber floors, carpet floors, tile floors? Is there a difference in electric charge depending on your flooring? Concrete floors, exposed concrete.

Alex Kessler (1:09:10)
There are slight differences between the different hard floors, but for all intents and purposes, they all exhibit this phenomenon if they're hard floors. Carpets, no. Well carpets attract particles and hold them, and it's nearly impossible to clean carpets properly. yeah,

Jess Kismet (1:09:28)
Yep.

Alex Kessler (1:09:30)
so that's carpet. But with carpets, what you

Jess Kismet (1:09:32)
This is the different.

Alex Kessler (1:09:32)
do is, it's a different breed. You HEPA vacuum them with an agitated, with a suction-impelled brush roll.

Jess Kismet (1:09:40)
Yep.

Alex Kessler (1:09:41)
to get up all the dust, but that's not the best. mean,

Jess Kismet (1:09:44)
That's all you can do.

Alex Kessler (1:09:44)
the best thing, yeah, the best thing to do is to remove them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jess Kismet (1:09:47)
Yeah, yeah, couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more.

Okay, so you specifically address people who rent. So we spoke earlier about renters and your DIY air filtration system and how people who don't, who can't make structural changes to their homes can actually improve their air quality. What are some other realistic options for people who can't make structural changes? Is there anything else you'd suggest for renters?

Alex Kessler (1:10:13)
So air purification, actually maybe before we go into that, I could talk about my small particle cleaning strategy like really quickly. Would that be good? Because it like

Jess Kismet (1:10:24)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:10:24)
feeds into this. OK. So.

So how do we clean our floors and counters? So we use microfiber, because the smaller the fiber, the more molecular forces it has to attract and hold particles through principles of physics. particles transfer from contaminated surfaces to microfiber more effectively than any other material. So

Jess Kismet (1:10:56)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:10:57)
that's what we use.

And then what's the cleaning solution? Do we use vinegar? Do we use essential oils? Do we use bleach, other antimicrobials? Nope, we don't use any of those. The goal is never ever to kill mould and bacteria because when you try to kill a living thing, it defends itself by releasing mycotoxins. The way we got penicillin is by exposing a mould species to a bacteria

Jess Kismet (1:11:29)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:11:29)
and to defend itself, that mould

species produced penicillin to kill the bacteria. Mould does the same thing when humans try to kill it, not with penicillin per se, but with mycotoxins. So we never ever want to use essential oils. We never want to use vinegar for other reasons, but we never want to use bleach. Nothing to kill. We're not trying to kill. We're only trying to remove. And so how do we remove? We use soap and water, unscented soap and water.

And

because everything is either fat soluble or water soluble. Certain biotoxins are water soluble and they can get kind of absorbed by the, or dissolved by the water component of your solution. And then mould spores and other biotoxins are fat soluble. Mold spores have a fatty coating on the outside. So they can get absorbed by the soap. So soap and water is the ultimate.

Vinegar, oil and vinegar don't mix. Have you ever tried to clean up a plate that has butter on it with vinegar? Doesn't work.

Jess Kismet (1:12:36)
Sorry.

Alex Kessler (1:12:39)
That's what mould is. It's a fatty kind of thing. And

Jess Kismet (1:12:43)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:12:43)
essential oils are an oil. So cleaning up an oil with an oil is not effective. And it also triggers a mould defense response. So when attacked, mould produces more toxins as secondary metabolites.

So yeah, soap and water and microfiber. So that's it.

Jess Kismet (1:13:04)
Okay, cool. So DIY air purification, soap and water, microfiber.

Okay, simple.

Alex Kessler (1:13:12)
yeah. So for, to answer your question, the previous one. so what I typically recommend just as like a base, a base solution is air purification, regular small particle cleaning, using a high capacity MERV-13 13 dehumidifier and regions that get humid and installing

Jess Kismet (1:13:32)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:13:33)
energy recovery ventilator, for fresh air. So those are like the top four.

recommendations. There's a lot of others, but those are the top four. Yeah.

Jess Kismet (1:13:41)
Yeah. Okay,

cool. Thank you, Alex.

Alex Kessler (1:13:45)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Kismet (1:13:46)
Now, there's a school of thought that says air purifiers are a band aid and you should fix a source of the problem other than the filter around it. Source control. So where does air purification sit in the hierarchy of things that somebody should prioritize? So that list you just gave us. Where is the air purification in the hierarchy? Is there like a top to bottom priority list?

Alex Kessler (1:14:11)
So if you have a mould problem in your house, number one thing to do is to remove the wet material and make sure that the leak never happens again. A lot of people can't do that. And a lot of times there is an issue in the house that is kind of systemic and requires you to literally replace all the drywall. So sometimes that's not feasible either. But if you can...

remove, repair, replace. Then you're gonna do small particle cleaning. okay, to answer your question about hierarchy, after that, all components are helpful for different reasons. So think of them as like different members of the team, of a team that have different strengths. So if I could only do one thing, I would just blast my space with fresh air.

I would use an ERV to do that, maybe even two ERVs. In mouldy spaces, I've used two ERVs and I've been able to feel fine in them. And then air purification, I would say small particle cleaning is probably next after fresh air. And dehumidification, making sure the humidity threshold is below threshold, which you can look at my resources to find out thresholds. That's

Jess Kismet (1:15:36)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Kessler (1:15:36)
next.

And then last is air purification. But that's not to say that air purifiers are not important, because I think they really are.

Jess Kismet (1:15:46)
Okay, good. Thank you for clarifying that. So we have come to the final question that I ask everybody. And that is out of everything that you have learned in your career and all of the research that you have done, which is extensive, what is the one thing you want the listener to take away from this conversation?

Alex Kessler (1:16:05)
If you're not aware of the other dimensions of health, but only focus on air quality, it will be much more difficult for you to heal. So I'd encourage everyone to focus as much on diet, nervous system regulation, circadian alignment and getting proper sunlight exposure, and other healing factors just as much as air quality. So air quality is one piece of the puzzle. It's usually not the whole solution.

And I'm going to say something controversial that might sound like brash, but I got to say it. If you're trying to improve your health, but you're still drinking alcohol and eating

Jess Kismet (1:16:45)
Hahaha

Alex Kessler (1:16:47)
processed foods and your pace of life is fast, like you're always just going down rabbit holes and you're high activity, high achieving, you'd greatly benefit from re-examining those parts of your life, slowing down.

kind of, if, if you're someone who has like a severe biotoxin illness, I'll be the person to say it. You can't eat processed foods. You can't drink alcohol. and, and, and I know that that sounds a bit like black and white. And I want to say nuance is big for me. I'm all about the nuance, but I think there is a place where nuance falls apart and it's

alcohol, processed foods, nervous system dysregulation. Most of the clients I work with, if they could address these things, in addition to air quality, they would be so far in their healing process, much further than they can get without addressing them. So that's what I'll say for that. Yeah.

Jess Kismet (1:18:01)
Alright, thank you Alex. Thank you for getting super nerdy with me about indoor air quality and air purifiers. I really enjoyed that conversation. I learnt a lot.

Alex Kessler (1:18:11)
Nice. Me too.

Jess Kismet (1:18:13)
And yeah, thank you so much for joining me. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Alex Kessler (1:18:19)
Happy to join you and thank you so much for inviting me. It's like, I love talking about this stuff and to have a curious audience like you is just like the best gift ever.

Jess Kismet (1:18:31)
Awesome, thanks again.

Alex Kessler (1:18:35)
Sure thing.